Bullet patching machine



3 Sheets-Sheet 1.

(No Model.)

A. O. HOBBS.

BULLET PATGHING MACHINE.

Patented May 9, 1882.

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Am 6e N. PETERS, Photo-Lithographer, wukin xm 9.0,

3 Sheets-Sheet 2.

A; c. HOBBS.

BULLET PATGHING MACHINE.

(N9 Model") Patented May 9, 1882.

(No Model.) 3 Shets-Sheet 3. A. G. HOBBS.

BULLET PATOHING MACHINE.

Patented May 9, 1882'.

lfilu Nv PEYERS. Photoiithcgnphn. Wnhmgtnn, D. c

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

ALFRED C. HOBBS, OF BRIDGEPORT, CONNECTICUT, ASSIGNOR TO THE UNION METALLIC CARTRIDGE COMPANY, OF SAME PLACE.

BULLET-PATCHING MACHINE.

SPECIFICATION formingpart of Letters Patent No. 257,584, dated May 9, 1882.

Application filed February 15, 1882. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ALFRED C. HOBBS, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, have invented certain Improvements in Devices for Automatically Feeding Bullets to Bullet-Patching Machines, of which the following is a specification.

My improvement relates to the feeding of bullets by an endwise movement to that class to of bullet-patching machines in which bullets deposited in recesses in. the periphery of a continuously-rotating horizontal disk are rolled along the concave face of a stationary guardwall, and enwrap their lower portions with a l I 5 slip of paper which they pick up as they are successively rolled across the exterior of a mass of such slips containedin a magazine inserted in and forming a part of the said guardwall. A method of feeding bullets to this class of machines by a bodily sidewise move 9 fer-wheel, which in some respects is similar cation of Messrs. Hobbs, Boyden, and Richin its construction to the hooked transferwheel shown and described in the said appliards, but differs therefrom in respect of its 3 5 location with relation to the patching-machine disk. Instead of being in the same plane, the transfer-wheel is in a slightly higher plane, and its edge overlaps the edge of the patcherdisk. The transfer-wheel and the patcher- 4o disk are so geared together that the speed with which the recess in the periphery of the patcher-disk moves through the arc of a circle under the transfer-wheel is uniform with the speed with which the bullet is moved 4 5 through the reverse arc of acircle in the plane above the patcher-disk. A bullet caught sidewise and carried around by one of the teeth or books of the transfer-wheel is supported upon its base upon a stationary table or bed beneath immediately over one of the recesses in the patcher-disk, where the table ends, and the bullet, pushed off the curved edge of the table at that point, is permitted to drop by an endwise movement downward into the recess in the patcher-disln The accompanying drawings, representing a bullet-patching machine containing my improvement, are as follows:

Figure 1 is a top view. Fig. 2 is a top view, upon an enlarged scale, of a portion of the patching-machine disk and the overlapping portion of the transfer-wheel; and Fig. 3 is a vertical section through the line :20 w on Fig. 1, a portion of this linebeingalso shown in Fig. 2, in which it is indicated by the letters 51 3 As the patchin g-machine to which my device is applied is fully described in the pending application of Hugo Borchardt, filed February 10, 1882, and is also shown in the pending application of Messrs. Hobbs, Boyden, and Richards, before referred to, no special description of it is necessary herein. For the purpose-of the present case it will be sufficient to say that the patching-machine disk A has the recesses a formed in its peripherfand is continuously rotated.

The bullets, resting upon their bases upon the surface of the ordinary friction feed-dial, B, are by means of the guide-walls b b arranged in single column and thrust successively against the periphery of the transfer wheel 0, provided with the ratchet-teeth c, the face of each of which and theimmediately adjoining portion of the periphery of the transfer-wheel present the semicircular recess a, in which the body of the bullet rests and'froni which it is prevented from dislodgment during its transfer by the exterior guard-wall, D. 011 reference to Fig. 2 it will be seen that the bullet E, deposited in the recess 0, is prevented from tipping forward out of that recess by the exterior guard=wall, D.

The spring F (shown on a large scale on Fig. 2) is one of several similar springs shown in Fig. 1, each of which extends through a hori zontal slot in the guard wall and bears upon the periphery. of the transfer-wheel. These springs may beemployed, if desired but they the transfer-wheel until it arrives at a point 1 do not form a part of my present invention,

and are not essential when the transfer-wheel is constructed, as shown, in such a manner that the space between the guard-wall and the periphery of the transfer-wheel at the forward edge of the recess is less than the transverse diameter of the bullet. The base of the bullet, while being carried around by the transfer-wheel, rests upon the stationary table or bed G, beneath the transfer-wheel, and upon an extension, 9, of this bed, which projects a short distance over the edge of the patcher-disk A. The extension 9 affords a support upon which the base of the bullet rests until, by the rotation of the transfer-wheel and of the patcher-disk, one of the recesses a in [the patcher-disk is brought immediately under the bullet, in position to receive the bullet as it drops, after having been pushed off the curved edge 9 of the extension g. During the time occupied by the bullet in dropping from the transfer-wheel to the recess in the patoherdisk the bullet is preserved in the necessary upright position by the semicircular recess 0 and the guard-wall D.

It will of course be understood that instead of depending upon gravity for the endwise movement of the bullet from the transferwheel into the recessin the patcher-disk, a positively-acting device may be employed to thrust the bullet endwise in the proper direction. Such a device, however, will not be necessary unless the transfer-wheel and the patcher-disk should be m ade of unusually small diameter.

It will also be understood that instead of the continuously-rotating tran sfer-wheel a reciprocatin g carrier or pusher may be employed to push the bullets successively from the end of the column delivered by the friction-dial, along a path extending over'the edge of the patcherdisk, in a direction nearly coincident with the are of the circle described by a recess in the patcher-disk during the time required to enable the bullet to move from the pusher into the recess.

I claim as my invention- 1. The herein-described method of feeding bullets into the recessesformedin the periphery of the continuously-rotating patcherfdisk A, which consists in imparting, by means of a suitably-moving carrier or pusher, a sidewise movement to the bullet in a plane overlapping the face of the patcher-disk while the bullet is passing by an endwise movement into one of the saidrecesses in the-periphery of the continuously-rotating disk.

2. The friction feed-dial B, provided with the guide-walls b b, and the transfer-wheel 0, provided upon its periphery with the ratchetteeth 0 and the recesses c, in combination with the table or bed G g and the guard-wall D, substantially as set forth.

3. The friction feed-dial B, provided with the guide-walls b b, the transfer-wheel O, provided upon its periphery with the ratchetteeth 0 and the recesses c, the table or bed G g, and the guard-wall D, in combination with the patcher-disk A, provided with the recesses ain its periphery, whereby bullets arranged in column .by the friction feed mechanism are deposited successively in the recesses c of the transfer-wheel and carried along the table G and over the edge of the extension 9 and delivered endwise into the recesses a in the periphery of the patcher-disk A.

A. G. HOBBS. 

